Skip on past this unless you're bored 
Okay then. Fortified with much hearty spacefarer-type foodstuffs and much more particularly some rather nice red, indulge me people, if you will. Oh and before I go on, a brief word to the tl;dr crowd. It was originally my intention to apologise to you all for the forthcoming text-wall. Then I thought: hey! lots of people like a nice long read. Well, those that do can just scroll on past and find one. In the meantime, if you're still with me stick with it. It could actually be worth it.
[removes tinfoil hat]
[engages RL mode]
[analysis engine running]
So you're a writer. Possibly of some good old suspenseful action stuff. Nowadays you have a problem to whit: the pesky public - if you are doing your job properly, they are all too likely to flick to the last few pages to find out whodunnit. Or if their favourite character is at least alive, if not in one piece.
Now superimpose this notion on the video game genre. We the players are a feisty lot and not averse to a bit of competition. Certainly if a developer starts out on a nice shiny new title with a story, there will be a race (by the players) to be 'The First' to publish - drum roll please....THE ENDING! It's human nature. We want to be validated as 'good' at a video game (why??) by our peers, and one route through to this 'honour' is 'The First Video' or whatever.
Now look. Turning back for a moment to the novel: if I tell you that the butler did it with the lead piping in the drawing room, I am sure many will nod sagely (whilst at the same time bemoaning the cliche), noting butlers are ever to be mistrusted in situational whodunnits.
But wait. Context is everything. If I go on to tell you that the lead piping concerned is 1 inch long, and has been flattened such that it now appears to the casual observer to be a piece of lead about 1 inch cubed, and I further tell you that the 'it' the butler did was in fact to use said piece of lead to stabilise a side-table in the aforementioned drawing room which had hitherto developed a wee wobble on account of having been clattered by Mrs Curmudgeonly-Smythe, she having had rather more gins-and-tonics than perhaps she should, the sagely-nodding brigade would instantly be given pause.
Frontier are no doubt all too aware of the 'First publisher' syndrome. The drive to 'win' (at a game with no ending). They are undoubtedly equally aware of the problem of context.
What am I getting at?
If they had, for instance, included at launch ALL assets necessary to the telling of the UA story, there is little doubt in my mind that somebody somewhere would have stumbled quite accidentally on the 'ending'
Some poor Commander discovers a 'Thargoid Mothership'. The game says: 'take this scan-data to system/station such and such'. Which he does. Station says: 'on examination of the data you have uncovered Commander, we now have the exact location of the Thargoid homeworld, and it appears that reverse-engineering of the ship you discovered will allow us to reach it'.
Cue ending credits.
'Elite: Much More Dangerous Will Return in 2022 : Elite: The Return of the Bug'
Thank you for playing. Please log into
www.frontiergames.com for information on upcoming dlc releases.
Game Over.
Continue Yes/No?
No.
If you're going to avoid this scenario (or any reasonable or for that matter unreasonable facsimile) the one thing you cannot afford to do is have all the assets in place at launch.
Where does that leave us?
Time to be a little dispassionate here.
First up: Let me be quite clear. I have in the past been one of the 'why is it taking so long' whingers. I'm not a million miles away from that position even now. However.
Oh yes, however.
Through dint of serendipity, Michael Brookes' intervention and sheer bloody-mindedness, we find out about and thence 'capture' a UA. (incidentally, this 'Canonn' - paramilitary? Terroristas? whatever they are, don't be fooled by the innocent 'Doctor' Arcanonn).
Big deal? Well yes. Boy oh boy yes. Cue mass testing etc. Except, what were the facts then and there? UAs made noises that's what. Done.
Oh, and they tried valiantly to eat your ship from the inside out. Other than that, nothing.
Biscuit barrels (you had to be there) huge co-ordination, massive losses on both sides, a few UAs.
Suddenly: some Xbox player finds one in HR 1185 in a strong signal source. WHAT!!!!
Now look, keep thinking about the storyline, the 'plot-development', Frontier's major part in all this here.
Out of the blue, we can now just wander about and 'find' the damn things. In SSS. Goody. 1 or two a day, at least 1 or 2 a week. Think of the sciencing that can be done with such an abundance.
Not.
What do we learn?
Well we learn a whole bunch of stuff that doesn't do anything or amount to anything much is what. NOTHING!!!!! NOTHING I'M TELLING YOU!!!!!
Point is Frontier are happy we're on-board, but aren't ready with further assets in game.
So E: D 1.3 is on it's last legs and E: D 1.4 is in the wings.
Now remember, at this point we are all still pretty hyped on the entire UA story, and haven't stopped to consider for one moment the effect we may be having on those without 'beta-access', the spoilerage if you will.
1.4 beta drops and RatKing15, bless him, still hauling his v1.2 UA about the galaxy suddenly notices a change in behaviour. The damn thing is now pointing at Merope. Cool. (no?)
Yours truly, also in 1.4 beta stumbles across a SSS in the hitherto unsuspected region of ADR GW-W d-1 52. And when I say stumbles, I mean the stupid SSS appeared before my FSD cooldown had completed. Of course in the true tradition of any Canonneer I dive in and what ho! it's a UA! Big deal, except IIRC Commander Nilreb swans on over to this system (I having continued on to Merope) only to discover that he too has found a SSS containing a UA. in fact I believe he went on to scoop up well over 10 or 12 of the hinky little idiots that same evening. I mean, from one or two a week, to AS MANY AS YOU WANT COME AND GET IT was a bit of a change.
Subsequently of course RedWizzard and others confirmed the existence of a 'shell' of UA yielding systems around Merope (if you don't know the distance, why are you here).
But really. What new data?
ALL the UA point to Merope. And of course this behaviour is confirmed when 1.4 goes 'live'.
So?
So nothing. Frontier are all of a sudden tight-lipped. Michael Brookes is silent. I rail against the machine and get banned for my trouble.
The point we have to remember here is space is damned big. Huge. Unfortunately, we here on this thread are 'ardent' to say the least. I don't think Frontier expected us to find their 'needle in a haystack' quite so quickly. (incidentally, GalNet's repeated harping on about 'The Missing' makes me wonder if they aren't a little miffed that unlike the UA story, we've yet to latch on to their 'Other Big Thing').
So in effect Frontier are 'caught with their pants down', by the speed with which the threadnaughteers have uncovered the next plot development, and haven't any way to advance the story, not until the 'Engineers' update at the earliest. The UAs are pointing at Merope, The Canonn have scanned and 'Scoured' the living daylights out of it. Zilch.
Because planetary landings are required.
Enter the 'bait and switch'.
Barnacles.
"hey the UAs point to Merope". "Yeah, I know - it's the Barnacles"
???????
Clever move Frontier. Very clever move.....
See, 'We all know everything there is to know about the UA'. Don't we. Don't we????
So why no UAs in the California Nebula? And given the multiple locations within that nebula in which barnacles are to be found, why aren't 'Merope's' UAs having a hissy-fit? I mean if the purpose of a UA is to help the player to discover barnacles....
No.
Not barnacles.
I said earlier that Frontier would be fools to include all assets in-game right now for the conclusion of the UA story, if only to avoid context-problems.
The UA points to Merope.
FOR A REASON.
The 'assets' for this leg of the story only just arrived in the shape of the 'Engineers Update'. The barnacles are not it.
Go figure.
Mike
[Tinfoil on]
[disengage analysis]
[RP mode ON]
Safe skies Commanders,
Layne Vakarian
